Monday, April 13, 2009

NUR Postcard! And a Boringly Lengthy Explanation of How It Was Made

So as not to appear like I'm just throwing this up on the ol' robo-blog because I have nothing else to write (which may or may not be the case) here are a couple of boring words about postcard making.

When you are making your postcard, you want to make sure that it ties in with the show concept. You want to make sure it is different enough to draw the casual observer's eye. And finally, you want to make sure everything is legible.

For this particular show we are experimenting with the amount of people that can reasonably be used in a sketch show and to see how that affects the energy of the performance and the experience of the audience.

The cast size affects the postcard design in two ways. First, from a production standpoint RvD has been trying to simplify everything in order to make the logistics as smooth as possible. We're trying to use less props and less costume and really focus on the performances of the talented cast. Second, we have a gigantic list of actors in the show and wanted to make sure we were able to fit all of the actors' names on the postcard.

As a result, we decided to go with a simple layout - title at the top, a stick figure graphic of some type below, and then location information, cast list, and ticket information below. There is very little extraneous information - no show blurb, no clever little jokes - which allows us to use the space effectively and to let the title, graphic and cast size speak to the type of show we have created.

Speaking of which, we decided on the title "¡Run, palindrome, nuR!", which could charitably be described as a unique title for a sketch show. It does require that you know what a palindrome is, so it is just a little bit heady (albeit in a completely stupid way). We were looking for a means of integrating the title with the simplicity of the production and decided on a simple stick figure graphic.

We settled on two stick figures running at one another. The graphic is like a visual palindrome in that the two stick men are mirror images of one another. We also considered trying two stick figures running in the same direction, which would have been fake-clever in the same way as the title, however I think that would have been just a little too clever. So we opted for the collision course stick figures, which I think looks a little more balanced anyway.

A word of caution: if you are going to hand draw your postcards, we certain that whatever text you are writing is correct. I made the mistake of not putting "Fridays" on the original draft of the postcard, as well as making the year 2008, and as a result I had to redraw the whole thing. Luckily, because the postcard is so simple, it didn't take me too long.

So there you have it. Back to your regularly scheduled smart-assed posting tomorrow.